I was just reading an article by Anne Friedberg called “The Virtual Window” (I think its actually a book), which talks about the origins of the window metaphor of pictorialism (the depiction of space on a flat surface), and it references Benjamin’s notion of the “dictatorial perpendicular,” especially in relation to television, film and computer screens (the latter, Friedberg says, does not retain the depiction of near and far space of the former - instead it is flatter - is Windows Vista trying to change that?). Anyway, I thought it was an interesting spark of an idea, and your photo here seems to bring it up. It also made me think of how when watching Inland Empire the other day I kept turning my head sideways, not sure why I was doing it, but I think it had something to do with sloughing off that dictatorial perpendicular. Dogs do it when they’re trying to get a new angle on our situations.
It is an interesting idea, and certainly part of what I was doing here (turning my head, so to speak, to get a new read). i was doing it during that movie, too, partly for the same reason (and partly because the guy in front of me kept moving)…. i don’t know much about windows vista except what’s on their website, but it does seem like they might be trying to change the primarily 2D space of the screen… though it doesn’t seem like they’ve come up with anything that OSX doesn’t already do.
I was just reading an article by Anne Friedberg called “The Virtual Window” (I think its actually a book), which talks about the origins of the window metaphor of pictorialism (the depiction of space on a flat surface), and it references Benjamin’s notion of the “dictatorial perpendicular,” especially in relation to television, film and computer screens (the latter, Friedberg says, does not retain the depiction of near and far space of the former - instead it is flatter - is Windows Vista trying to change that?). Anyway, I thought it was an interesting spark of an idea, and your photo here seems to bring it up. It also made me think of how when watching Inland Empire the other day I kept turning my head sideways, not sure why I was doing it, but I think it had something to do with sloughing off that dictatorial perpendicular. Dogs do it when they’re trying to get a new angle on our situations.
jed, my random letters are:
byyjeid
February 5th, 2007 | #
It is an interesting idea, and certainly part of what I was doing here (turning my head, so to speak, to get a new read). i was doing it during that movie, too, partly for the same reason (and partly because the guy in front of me kept moving)…. i don’t know much about windows vista except what’s on their website, but it does seem like they might be trying to change the primarily 2D space of the screen… though it doesn’t seem like they’ve come up with anything that OSX doesn’t already do.
February 6th, 2007 | #
this is stupid.
February 28th, 2007 | #